


Different Together

by earth_dragon



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/F, Femslash, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-09 06:54:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3240410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earth_dragon/pseuds/earth_dragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ginny can't understand how Luna tolerates being so openly teased and taunted, so she asks her about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Different Together

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Livejournal, written for a friend there who requested Ginny/Luna.

She’s such a strange bird, that Luna. She’s always loosing her things (Harry says people take her things from her, but it doesn’t seem to pester her much.) and she wears the oddest hats I’ve ever seen!

And those radish earrings.

I think it was those earrings that made me first notice her. Or at least made me notice the fact that she truly doesn’t care what others think of her.

It’s wrong, but I envy her that, sometimes. I envy the fact that she can breeze through the world without worrying, without caring.

I’m poor. Poor as can possibly be, really, short of actually living in a cardboard box and having to beg for Knuts in Diagon Alley. Everything I own is second, third, or even fourth hand. My books are tattered and my robes are patched (and patched, and patched), and it bothers me that people notice.

I don’t try to be different. I just want to fit in with everyone else.

But Luna…

Luna’s crazy hats, and theories about creatures that slip into your ears and suck out your brain, and those earrings --- all of those things make her stand out, gets her teased, made fun of. But she just doesn’t care.

Luna’s a lot braver than me when it comes right down to it.

I can cast a Bat Boogy Hex with the best of them, but I’m afraid of the whispers that go around behind my back about how poor Ginny just couldn’t afford new robes this year, couldn’t afford new books, or new anything!

I hate the whispering behind my back, so I just couldn’t see how Luna could take the open-faced insults.

So finally, one evening after a DA meeting, I watched as she smoothed a lock of blond hair behind her radish earring-clad ear and I approached her. I noticed that, despite the earrings, that she wasn’t all that bad to look at. Somehow, she always managed to look peaceful. She smiled sweetly and greeted me warmly, as if this was an everyday occurrence.

I didn’t understand how she could have such trust in people after the way she had been treated for so long.

“Can I help you with something, Ginny?” she asked in that high, and ethereal voice. “You seem concerned.”

My mouth went dry. I looked all around us nervously, watching the others leaving the Room of Requirement until we were the only ones left. Then I looked back at her. Or I tried to. I could only bring myself to look at her ridiculous earrings, but really, they weren’t so ridiculous on her.

They just seemed like a part of her.

“How do you do it?” I finally blurted out.

“Do what?” she asked in wide-eyed innocence.

“How do you tolerate the way people treat you?” I finally looked at her face. She didn’t seem bothered by my question in the slightest, and that made me even more nervous.

Luna looked back at me with her wide-set, unblinking eyes; she tilted her head just slightly to the left. “How do you tolerate the way people treat you?” she asked back.

I spluttered.

“I --- wha --- people don’t… People don’t treat me any differently than they do anybody else!” I declared, my famous Weasley temper beginning to rise.

“Yes they do,” she answered calmly, her gaze never leaving mine. “They just don’t have the courage to say it to your face like they do mine.”

I gaped at her.

“You want to know how I can tolerate the way people treat me so badly to my face because you know they say a lot of the same bad and hurtful things about you behind your back.”

I just continued to stare at her with my mouth open. Anger and astonishment flooded through me. How could she, with her stupid hats, and stupid earrings, and stupid theories, know so much about me? How?

Luna closed her eyes for a moment and suddenly a couple of large arm chairs and a warm fire appeared in the room. She indicated for me to sit. I did so, numbly.

“We’re really not so different, you and me,” Luna said. The firelight danced off her golden hair and played in her wide but genuinely caring eyes. “Both of us are different. You don’t have a choice, and people talk about you behind your back. I’m different because, well, because that’s just the way I am. People feel bad for you so they don’t say anything to your face. They don’t feel bad for me because being different is my choice.”

I looked at her, almost imploringly. How could someone I had barely even spoken to understand so much about me? What was it about Luna that was so damn mysterious and intriguing? “But why? Why be so different if you know you’re going to be made fun of?”

Luna shrugged and smiled that easy, lazy smile again. “Why lie about who I am? What’s the point? If people don‘t like me, then they don‘t like me; and at least this way I like me. And I’d much rather have someone say something to my face rather than behind my back, if they’re going to say anything at all.”

I paused cold at her words.

I hated the whispers the went behind my back. I had no choice but to be poor. I couldn’t help the family I was born into, and anyway, I was proud of my family!

At least if someone said something to my face then I would know who to Bat Boogy Hex.

Luna knew all of her insulters, yet she never hexed anyone.

“Luna ---” I started.

“Are you happy with who you are, Ginny?” Luna suddenly asked, quietly, but seriously.

“I…” I thought about it. I was rarely ever as peaceful as Luna seemed to be. Except that I was peaceful now, with her.

I was peaceful with Luna and her radish earrings, and the fact that she chose to be different. I was warm and peaceful and content.

And I realized then that was Luna’s mystery. That was why she never hexed anyone back: she knew she was ultimately better than all of them. Luna wasn’t a blind follower like everyone else; she made her own way, her own path.

She truly was courageous.

Maybe I couldn’t choose my family (proud though I was of them!), or my financial status; maybe I couldn’t afford brand new robes or books, or fancy brooms. But I could choose my friends. I could choose my own way just as Luna had chosen hers and make everyone face me.

I could choose Luna.

Finally, I smiled back at her, and I reached over and tucked a strand of blond hair behind her other radish-clad ear. She looked at me for a second as if evaluating what I had just done. I knew the gesture could not be lost on her because she was obviously one of the most observant individuals.

“Yeah,” I answered. “I think I am happy with who I am now.”

Luna simply smiled and took my hand, and I decided then that if we were going to be teased and taunted, then it would be because we chose to be different together.


End file.
